Why 24fps is not enough for HDR movies

[Rasmus Larsen]

Our review of Chromecast with Google TV is online. The new Chromecast has a full TV user interface and a remote control. Google TV is the new UI on top of Android TV.
Link: https://www.flatpanelshd.com/review.php ... 1617956429

If you have questions please use this thread.

Enjoy.

[Sledgegamma]

Is there a specific reason why you don’t evaluate the picture quality on your player reviews?
I post pictures with examples of upscaling and chroma upsampling like this:
https://www.avsforum.com/threads/review ... x.3170473/
This way you can objectively see the PQ differences of different players.

In your Apple TV 4K review you write:
“ It may seem odd to include a dedicated picture quality section in a review about a box that connects to a TV.”

I don’t find this odd at all. I find it a necessity.

[AntoniAriasDiaz]

Hello, just to say that on my Chromecast with Google TV I am getting AV1c for video and MP4a for audio on Youtube app. I think it has happened since latest update just a few weeks ago.

Regards

[Rasmus Larsen]

Hello, just to say that on my Chromecast with Google TV I am getting AV1c for video and MP4a for audio on Youtube app. I think it has happened since latest update just a few weeks ago.

Regards

Just checked again. No AV1 for us.

Can you share a photo or screenshot of YouTube’s ‘stats for nerds’ menu?

EDIT: Or are you seeing "avc1" in the 'specs for nerds'? Because that's AVC, short for Advanced Video Codec, also known as H.264 / MPEG-4.

[Rasmus Larsen]

Is there a specific reason why you don’t evaluate the picture quality on your player reviews?
I post pictures with examples of upscaling and chroma upsampling like this:
https://www.avsforum.com/threads/review ... x.3170473/
This way you can objectively see the PQ differences of different players.

Good job, very thorough. Thanks for the link.

I agree that there are some interesting aspects here, but it will depend on the specific app and we are not including in-depth evaluations of apps. We focus mainly on the player's capabilities.

I think evaluations relating to match frame rate and match dynamic rate qualify as picture quality evaluations. Also HDR conversion etc. Those are important functions that a media streaming device should master. If the player has a novel approach to upscaling or other things, we also evaluate those (i.e. Nvidia's upscaling approach).

[Sledgegamma]

Thanks for the answer. I believe that streaming apps (Netflix, Amazon, etc) use the standard APIs for hardware decoding so they are the same. However, I'm not sure of that and there are always exceptions.
For other apps like Infuse, Plex etc. its a different story as they often have their own playback engine. But then this also varies on the platform (tvOS vs Android).

[Kuschelmonschter]

Yes. Apps typically use fixed-function HW decoding and post-processing pipelines. The content matters though. Is it 24/25/30/...fps? Is refresh rate switched? Is there some MEMC involved? Is the content even interlaced? What's the source resolution? Depending on those and other factors, the outcome might be different depending on the used chipsetz.

[Rasmus Larsen]

A few updates since we published our review.

Chromecast gains HDR10+ support, Roku & Paramount+ join initiative
Chromecast (Google TV) is no longer forcing HDR output

With the latter, you can tell Chromecast never to request the HDR video stream, which can be very useful if you have an HDR-compatible low-end or mid-range LCD TV or a projector.

[Adi S M]

HLG (Hybrid Log Gamma) HDR is not supported by Chromecast with Google TV. Do you know if there will be any update to get support for HLG HDR format?

[Rasmus Larsen]

HLG should be supported according to Google's specs here: https://support.google.com/chromecast/a ... -google-tv

[Adi S M]

HLG should be supported according to Google's specs here: https://support.google.com/chromecast/a ... -google-tv

Now, with the new firmware update from December 2021, the HDR HLG is working as expected for youtube HDR HLG video clips on Chromecast with Google TV.
On the previous firmware, the HDR HLG was not supported because youtube HDR HLG video clips were rendered as HDR10 video clips.